Are you allowed on this site at work?

At work I am explicity allowed to access the web for reasonable personal use, including religious sites, but am blocked by Blue Coat (R) ProxySG(TM) from venganza.org as it is classified under "Blogs/Newsgroups".

I have successfully asked them to remove the "Humor/Jokes" catagory and am pursuing reclasification to Religion.

jamesbell4 wrote:At work I am explicity allowed to access the web for reasonable personal use, including religious sites, but am blocked by Blue Coat (R) ProxySG(TM) from venganza.org as it is classified under "Blogs/Newsgroups".

I have successfully asked them to remove the "Humor/Jokes" catagory and am pursuing reclasification to Religion.

If they refuse I will ask my employer to take action!

Sure, and I'll present an act at ONU,and Council of Europe against this violation og Human Rights.

A cheerful chap at Bluecoat (or perhaps FSM himself) replied to my request. In short he reclassified venganza in bluecoat's listing to "Political/Activists" so now both myself and my newly converted colleagues can enjoy venganza it all its noodly glory.

The organisation I work for takes religion seriously, and allows its employees reasonable use of the internet for personal use.

My company's IT policy explicitly allows us to access religious sites, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 18 states everyone has the right to freedom of religion, in public, teaching, worship and observance.

You claim to have removed the site http://www.venganza.org/ from the "Humour/Joke" category but when I attempt to access it Blogs/Newsgroups;Humour/Jokes are both still contained in the denial message.

I appreciate the change may occur during today's batch update and will try again tomorrow.

However I am still asking you to reclassify the site to religion due to its clearly religious content.

Most websites allow users to post messages to other readers, including sites such such as the www.bbc.co.uk

That does not make that site a newsgroup or bog.

Debate is a healthy and necessary attribute of religion. The primary purpose of http://www.venganza.org is to spread the word of Pastafarianism and provide resources to believers and information to others.

If you really feel the need to stifle religious free speech then keep http://www.venganza.org/forum/ as a newsgroup or similar classification and reclassify the remainder of the site to what it should be.

It is my pleasure to reply to your email. I believe Blue Coat was more than generous in removing the Humor/Jokes classification from http://www.venganza.org; particularly in light of this excerpt taken from a blurb featured prominently on itâ€™s landing page, which as an aside needs to be updated since the awards have come and gone -

â€œThe Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has been nominated for the 2006 Quill Awards in the Humor Category! Thank you to everyone who voted.â€ It lost in case you missed it.

â€¢ The FSM wants everyone to talk and dress like pirates. Global warming is considered a punishment for the relative scarcity of pirates these days.

â€¢ Every Friday is a sloth-filled holy day. Instead of "amen," devotees end missives with "R'amen," in honor of the college student's favorite noodle fare.

Both Pastafarian and the lay person ought to appreciate the absurdist humor in these pronouncements though they do highlight many of the equally absurd notions proffered by many religions of the world which I believe is really the point in all this after all. In fact one could make a reasonable argument that http://www.venganza.org is not really a religion per say so much as it is anti-religion, at least in terms of the way it promulgates agnostic or even atheistic views.

One could also argue that Mr. Henderson is a master satirist. A satirist who is providing an important function by allowing those frustrated with some of the more mainstream (not to imply correct) views a rallying point leading to discussion and debate, hence the Blogs/Newsgroup rating. But with that being said you raise an interesting point about many websites allowing users to post messages to other readers, including sites such as the www.bbc.co.uk. As a result Iâ€™ve removed that rating.

While I would be happy to petition for an addition to the Humor category such as Humor/Jokes/Parody to better address sites such as http://www.venganza.org for the time being I will leave off the recently removed Humor flag.

The real problem is that http://www.venganza.org does not really fit our Religion class whose definition I have included here.

â€œSites that promote and provide information on conventional or unconventional religious or quasi-religious subjects, as well as churches, synagogues, or other houses of worship. Does not include sites containing alternative religions such as Wicca or witchcraft (Cult/Occult) or atheist beliefs (Political/Activist Groups)â€

â€œUnconventionalâ€ maybe but thatâ€™s stretching things. So we are left with a conundrum here as your other suggestion, Sexuality/Alternative Lifestyles, is not really suitable either and would most surely result in a block from your end anyway, at least where you to attempt to access the site while, ahemâ€¦ working. What to do, what to do?

After mulling all the possibilities I could take the Pontius Pilates approach (thereâ€™s that silly religion creeping into things again) and recommend that you ask your IT group to simply allow the site and wash my hands of it, you and your ilk, but at Blue Coat we take our jobs seriously (for the most part) so I am going to affix http://www.venganza.org with a Political/Activists sticker though that may still be flagged to block as part of your governing Internet access policy in which case you ought to pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster requesting that he/she/it, intervene in your behalf as I can do no more.

BTW, Political/Activists is defined here as â€œSites sponsored by or which provide information on political parties, special interest groups, or any organization that promotes change or reform in public policy, public opinion, social practice, or economic activities.â€ Which I find to be most fitting since this brouhaha originated when sides were drawn over the controversy surrounding how to teach students about the origins of life.

In summary the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is really about attempting to sway opinion and promote change when it comes to intelligent design and then thereâ€™s the push to get everyone to talk and dress like pirates to contend withâ€¦

Note that as company Blue Coat is not taking sides here. Rather we concentrate on trying to map web content to our current category offerings which by our own admission is woefully inadequate in this instance but we try.

â€œSites that promote and provide information on conventional or unconventional religious or quasi-religious subjects, as well as churches, synagogues, or other houses of worship. Does not include sites containing alternative religions such as Wicca or witchcraft (Cult/Occult) or atheist beliefs (Political/Activist Groups)â€

I will say what the hell is that crap? (from the second letter's definition of a religion worthy of being exept from the filter)

then again I did get block from accessing this "hard core prawn"* website from work as part of my required job:
http://spcs.org.nz/

Steven
*the link is completely worksafe (assuming your work does not object to idiotic busy bodies who object to just about everything), and the 0 is intended to show the general idiocy of some spam blockers. Might Mods feel free to change if you want.
fuck it, see it pings even that!!!!

We have two FSMs in our display case at work! I even brought in my giant FSM sculpture to work one day. It was also displayed in a public art show at my university in November, which was attended by many of the people with whom I work. (The photo is from the show.) Then again, I work in a science (geography) department.

The biology department at this university has also been touched by the noodly appendages.